1. Field of Invention
The invention generally relates to obtaining information relating to a specific location using a positioning system. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method for obtaining location specific information about a particular location using a distributed network in combination with the positioning system.
2. Description of Related Art
Many people travel throughout the world or even their own local communities without realizing the wealth of information concerning their surroundings. For example, people travel in their own communities without knowing what buildings may be of historical significance or what shopping center may have a specific store or whether any store in the shopping center sells a specific product.
In many instances, people rely on brochures or other literature in order to familiarize themselves with their surroundings. These brochures may include tourist/travel brochures, shopping mall directories/maps or other similar literature. However, these brochures are not very informative because they contain limited amounts of information. The amount of information is limited due to factors such as high distribution costs. Accordingly, relatively little money is available for research, writing and printing. Thus, much information that would otherwise be informative to the public may not be included in these brochures.
This lack of information often results in ineffective advertising for businesses. The public is also unable to effectively obtain adequate information about their surroundings. For example, a business may not be able to provide the consumer with a list of products sold in a particular store. Similarly, a local historical building may not be able to provide the public with effective information concerning the significance of the historical site. Information concerning (i) local wildlife and vegetation, (ii) locations of shopping centers, (iii) government information, and many other types of information may also be limited or non-existent.
However, many entities, such as stores, historical sites, and/or multi-national businesses now utilize distributed networks, such as the Internet and, more particularly, the World Wide Web portion of the Internet, to provide the public with useful information. For example, information about a historical site, such as a Civil War battlefield, may be disseminated via the World Wide Web and accessed though commercial Internet service providers (ISPs). The World Wide Web also provides the public with countless amounts of other information, such as business data, stock quotes or official government information.
However, a user will not have access to the desired information unless they manually input a web address or uniform resource locator (URL) associated with a particular web page. In these cases, it may be difficult to retrieve the web page because the URL may be difficult to locate, even with the sophisticated search engines currently available. Also, the web address may be very long which may result in a mistake when entering the web address.
Furthermore, when attempting to find location information about specific locations, a user may not know the "keywords" or other pertinent information in order to extract the desired information relating to that location. For example, a person may want information concerning local vegetation or wildlife, but is unable to define an adequate search to find that specific information.